Transportation bills: House and Senate versions have major differences

With two months remaining to get a long-term surface transportation bill done, the House and Senate are racing this week to mark up several portions of their dueling legislation. And though the process is just beginning, there are already major rifts between the chambers.

Lawmakers are playing up the similarities in public — the annual funding levels are close enough, they say — and transportation leaders continue to express cautious optimism. But when pressed, senators and representatives are unhappy with a number of major differences, including how the bills are paid for and how long they last.

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The differences mean that while everyone POLITICO spoke with — whether in Congress, the administration, lobbyists or transportation advocates — thinks the opportunity to get a surface transportation bill signed by the president is a real one after more than 850 days of stopgaps, there’s still plenty of opportunity for things to go awry.

A number of markups start this week on Capitol Hill, with the Senate pushing a two-year, $109 billion effort and the House bill expected to clock in at five years and $260 billion. And that’s before you get to the policy differences, like the GOP effort to use oil-drilling revenue to pay for part of it.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who’s leading the Senate effort at the Environment and Public Works Committee, has called the House’s pay-for — expanded energy exploration, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — a “nonstarter.”

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) has said the Senate’s two-year bill is merely an “extension” that spends down the already low Highway Trust Fund balance. In fact, if Mica had it his way, it would be a six-year bill, because he emphasizes large local projects can take significantly longer than two years to complete. He’s not the only Republican opposed to the Senate tack.

“A two-year bill … what are we doing?” said senior T&I member (and former chairman) Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska).

Mica wanted a longer-term bill at current funding levels — which means he needs more money. “He has a problem of funding, and that’s going to be an issue,” Young said of Mica. “There’s a group of congressmen that think there’s going to be a magic wand to create funds.”

The opposing sentiments provoked a theatrical couple of days for Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who on Wednesday told a transportation conference, “We’ll probably have to wait until next year to get to a surface transportation bill because of the huge differences,” causing a minor uproar on Capitol Hill and eliciting a telephone call from Boxer on Thursday.

Readers' Comments (8)

"Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who’s leading the Senate effort at the Environment and Public Works Committee, has called the House’s pay-for — expanded energy exploration, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — a “nonstarter.

More of the same BS from demo-crats. Another rich b i t ch from the state of moonbeams, illegals, weirdos, and mental diseased liberals trying to make energy policy for normal people.

The high speed rail that Boxer and the other California moonbeamers are pushing would cost $100 billion, the equivalent of the entire two year transportation budget noted in the story. Inevitably this estimate will prove to be a fraction of the actual cost, if this project continues.all

It is imperative that these big spenders that are bankrupting the country with fairy tale schemes such as Obama's crisscrossing of America with government financed and hugely subsidized AMTRACKS must be stopped. Vote your pocketbook in November. Vote out the irresponsible big spenders and vote for sanity in the nation's budget.

If senator (she earned the title) boxer is for something, it is guaranteed to be a failure, expensive, and a deficit increaser. She calls the house legislation a non-starter. Now this is interesting. It doesn't matter what the house sends the senate, it is always a non-starter. The Republicans are labeled obstructionists how??